The project will provide quality healthcare through easily accessible communication

Intel Pakistan, NexSource Pakistan, eHealth Services Ltd. and ASK Development will jointly provide quality healthcare to rural communities through eHealth, aimed at improving human and institutional development of civil society and public sector organizations through partnership in capacity building initiatives. The outcome of project will enable rural teams to work on kiosks and be instrumental to provide quality healthcare through easily accessible communication.

Intel Pakistan, NexSource Pakistan, eHealth Services Ltd. and ASK Development’s joint e-Health project will deploy a TeleMedicine Network in Pakistan with over 15,000 rural locations. This will involve around 75,000 healthcare professionals including more than two thousand doctors and paramedical staff. To build an effective program, the initial efforts will be on educating the participants and enabling them with IT skill who are usually over 30 years of age, and have less knowledge about computer and technology. Under Intel Easy Steps Program, master trainers will be trained who will further provide IT training doctors and kiosks workforce to better run the kiosks with the help of information technology.

Speaking on the occasion, Intel Pakistan, Country Manager, Naveed Siraj said, “We believe Intel Easy Steps Program can help in overcoming this challenge, as 82% of people need to be given the essential IT training. To impart basic computer skills, master trainers will be trained, who will further train doctors/kiosks workforce to better run the kiosks with the help of technology. The outcome of the program will be the better understanding of computer skills as well as the improved efficiency of kiosks employees”.

During the pilot, the program is going to develop a Telemedicine network of Health Kiosks in Mirpurkhas and Umerkot Districts Sindh, connected to the Hub at Karachi. 15 kiosks will be established during 1stphase of the project, and the target audience or the ultimate beneficiary of this phase will be 8 doctors and 30 kiosks workforce. In 2nd phase, the number of kiosks will be increased to 100 by the end of 2012, and 380 people will be trained in 115 kiosks. Under this e-Health Programme, more than 1000 kiosks will be established each yearly so as to achieve the maximum number of IT-trained doctors, paramedics and other healthcare providers in the next 4 years.